March 29, 2000

The New World Order and
You

On the way to the Antiwar.com conference
I was reading the New York Times. This is not something I
like to do, but it was either that or the in-flight movie. The paper
carried a number of stories about President Clinton’s trip to India.
One described him visiting a village and listening to the problems
of the local women. The reporter, Celia W. Dugger, could not stop
gushing about Clinton’s solicitude, not to mention his extraordinary
importance in the world. On and on she blathered about these insignificant
Indian women’s appropriately reverential attitude towards the Commander
in Chief of the Greatest Power on Earth. At one point she wrote:
"And one of those council members had a good question for the
big shot from America. People all over the world stereotype Indians
as a backward people, she said. ‘Do you think we are backward?’
The president replied with an emphatic ‘No’. ‘You are proving that
democracy can be used to lift the poor; can be used to end discrimination
against women and keep children  girls and boys  in
school; can be used to bring people of different tribes and castes
together’, he said. ‘That is very important to me and my family,
my wife who has been in Indian villages, and to our whole administration’."

One
wonders why Bill Clinton even bothered to go to India. He
hardly needed to travel thousands of miles and to drag along
his vast entourage  all at taxpayers’ expense  just to utter
these tired platitudes. For Clinton says the same thing
wherever he goes. Whether he is in Baltimore or in the Bronx
or in East Palo Alto he is always harping on about "ending
discrimination against women" or about "keeping
children in school." Yet the Times story captures
perfectly the essential ingredients of the New World Order.
On the one hand, there is the vast mass of humanity which
has to conform to contemporary Western notions of "tolerance,"
"diversity" and "multiculturalism."
On the other hand, there is the "big shot from America"
On the one hand, we have "tolerance"  one that
tolerates everything except intolerance of tolerance. On
the other hand, we have the United States, ready to use
its B-2 bombers and cruise missiles to enforce the rule
of "tolerance."

"Non-discrimination"
and American power go rather well together. Civilization
is about discrimination. It is about preferring one thing
to another, one’s own language to another, one’s own moral
values to another, one’s own traditions to another. American
power  or rather the policymakers who wield it 
loathes this. And this is perfectly understandable. The
less culture, the fewer traditions one is committed to,
the less one will be able to resist the encroachments of
the United States. History must be jettisoned, here in the
United States as much as anywhere else. The Indian villagers
who are babbling about "diversity" one day will
be eating Big Macs and taking their cues from Christiane
Amanpour and CNN the next.

The
New World Order means nothing but the absolute, unconditional,
unrestricted power of the United States. Needless to say,
America’s leaders strive mightily to obscure this. Remember
the first time we heard about the New World Order? It was
used by President Bush before the United Nations in September
1990. Bush was asking the world to rally behind the US-led
alliance seeking to throw Iraq out of Kuwait. Now George
Bush probably said these words without meaning too much
by them. That was often the case with him. At the time,
the "New World Order" was interpreted to mean
the rule of international law. The end of the Cold War meant
that nations would no longer be able to play the Great Powers
off against one another. There was now only one power in
the world  the West. And the West, as everyone knew, stood
for international law. Hence nations would have to resolve
their differences in accordance with civilized norms. The
United Nations would finally come into its own.

However,
the rule of international law was about the last thing the
United States had in mind. As always, the UN is handy only
when Americans are able to control it. If they can’t, they
disregard it. This is what happened last year. The United
States was bent on waging an aggressive war against Yugoslavia.
Most of the rest of the world was extremely unhappy about
this. So the United States decided to skip the United Nations
altogether, even as it was blathering on about "humanitarian
intervention" and the "international community."
In pulverizing Yugoslavia the United States violated every
international law in the book, from the Articles of the
United Nations to the Geneva Conventions to the 1969 International
Law of Treaties.

Clearly
then the New World Order has nothing to do with international
law. Nor does it have much to do with the rule of democracy  Francis
Fukuyama’s little conceit. To American policymakers the
"democracy" slogan is useful as a stick with which
to beat perceived enemies of the United States. The rest
of the time they pay no attention to it. Slobodan Milosevic
has won election after election in Yugoslavia. Yet America’s
leaders continually refer to him as a "dictator."
In the meantime, they fall over themselves groveling before
the various Arab sheiks who run their little states as family
fiefdoms and never bother with elections at all. They do
as they are told and no one badgers them about the lack
of "independent" media. A columnist like William
Safire  always a useful bellwether of US government thinking  dismisses
the Russian elections as a "fraud." Why? Because
Vladimir Putin, whom he loathes for daring to pursue Russian
national interests, won overwhelmingly, while his candidate,
Grigory Yavlinsky, ended up in single digits. Election results
that are inconvenient to the US Government are to be disregarded.
If people vote the wrong way they are punished. Austrians
go to the polls. They vote for Joerg Haider and then find
themselves ostracized. Bosnian Serb President Nikola Poplasen
wins an election, then gets kicked out of office  not by
the voters but by the Office of High Representative (the
very name is redolent of the old office of Colonial High
Commissioner). Poplasen was deemed "unacceptable"
to the "international community," whether Bosnia’s
Serbs wanted him as their leader or not.

The
New World Order has nothing much to do with human rights
either. The United States picks and chooses very carefully
whom it will upbraid for delinquency on the matter. Turkey
gets a free hand to do what it wants with its dissidents.
As does Colombia. As does Algeria. As does the Kosovo Liberation
Army. As do the Chechen rebels. So long as your killing
and kidnapping are securing US interests, your values are
in conformity with those of the New World Order. Similarly,
you can be as nationalist and as intolerant as you want.
But you must pursue US interests. While Washington was hysterically
denouncing the idea of "Greater Serbia"  which
no one had ever seriously pursued anyway  it was busily
promoting the reality of Greater Albania. Why? Because Greater
Albania is ready to turn itself into a US satellite, a military
base in the Eastern Mediterranean . Therefore, Albanian
nationalism was encouraged. The New World Order purports
to be intolerant of religious intolerance. Yet the United
States hates certain religions, not others. And it finds
certain kinds of religious intolerance very tolerable. Last
year, the US Government declared that there would be no
let up in the bombing of Yugoslavia during Orthodox Easter.
This contrasted starkly with President Clinton’s professed
solicitude for the feelings of Moslems in December 1998
when he stated that he would not bomb Iraq during Ramadan.
In the past, the United States has expressed concern that
Russia was granting the Orthodox Church a privileged status
among the country’s religious faiths. Yet President Alija
Izetbegovic’s commitment to introduce the sharia in Bosnia
only elicited an American promise to come to his rescue.
The United States has also had no problems with the sharia
in Chechnya. Who are the leaders of the most intolerant
Islamic fundamentalism in the world today? Afghanistan’s
Taliban. And, of course, they were created by the United
States. Their mission was to make mischief for the Russians.
This they have accomplished with aplomb.

It
is obvious then that there is only one consistent principle
that animates the New World Order: All nations, all religions,
all moral values have to be subordinates to the will of
the United States. The United States will decide the destiny
of the world. The tools at its disposal are extraordinary
in their variety and power. Apologists for US power talk
of the ubiquity and influence of American culture, as if
it is idiotic movies and TV shows that secure America’s
dominance over other nations. America rules on account of
its military power. No one is strong enough to challenge
NATO. Not surprising then that the United States has repeatedly
pressed its European "partners"  or rather underlings  to
deploy NATO "out of area." America also rules
on account of its financial power  its ability to provoke
a crisis somewhere and then to ride to the rescue  in the
guise of the IMF. We saw this in 1998 in Indonesia. The
United States decided to oust President Suharto, a loyal
American client for thirty years. There was a meltdown of
the rupiah. The boys from the IMF flew in and advised Suharto
to float the currency, close down the banks and raise fuel
prices. Suharto took the advice for the simple reason that
it had never occurred to him not to do what Washington ordered.
Widespread rioting ensued and Suharto went  just as the
US Government expected.

America
rules on account of new-fangled bogus international courts
of law. By setting up the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the United States served
notice on political leaders everywhere that if they fall
out of line they might find themselves yanked off to the
Hague, there to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
The United States, of course, does not take international
courts seriously. If it did, it would have to subordinate
itself to the dictates of other powers-an unthinkable proposition.
Whatever one may think of the International Criminal Convention,
at least it has some standing in international law. Nations
that sign it voluntarily cede their sovereignty. The ICTY,
on the other hand, has no standing in international law,
since it was set up by one group of nations to rule over
another group of nations. It is exactly the kind of Court
the United States favors  one completely under its control.
It is there to intimidate other countries. Is it likely
that it will indict Bill Clinton for his unquestioned war
crimes? Is it conceivable that someone will seize Madeleine
Albright after she leaves office and haul her off to the
Hague? Of course not. Anyone who tries to do that will soon
find himself subjected to a barrage of cruise missiles.

Is
there anything we can do about the New World Order? Is there
anything we can do to free ourselves from the global tyranny
of the United States? I do not expect much to change here
at home in the foreseeable future. Ordinary Americans may
not be very enthusiastic about US military capers, but they
are not suffering too much as a consequence either. The
bombing of Yugoslavia was not popular. On the other hand,
it was not particularly unpopular. It was not expensive
and there were no US casualties. As for the the US elite,
running an empire is too exciting to be given up without
a fight. Therefore, anyone  whether Pat Buchanan or anyone
else  who dares to question the American empire will be
subjected to a vicious campaign of slander. As for the Republicans,
they simply do not believe they have the ability intellectually
to challenge the elite. In this they are probably right.
George W. Bush first expressed skepticism about the bombing
of Yugoslavia. Then, confronted by vituperation from the
military-media he beat a hasty retreat. It turned out, his
only problem with the bombing was that it was not "ferocious"
enough.

No,
change will only come from without. Americans will not abandon
their military interventions until they begin to face real
costs. This will not happen until rivals to the United States
emerge. I am sure a number of you will disagree with me
here. But one power I have hopes for is the European Union.
I was never a great fan of the EU until I saw how uncomfortable
it made US policymakers feel. So I thought, anything that
troubles the United States as much as the EU does can’t
be all bad. At the moment the European Union is largely
an economic power. But, slowly and surreptitiously it is
developing its military power. This drives Washington up
the wall. At regular intervals, they go to the Europeans
and demand to know what they are up to. Are they building
a rival to NATO? Certainly not, cry the Europeans, they
are building a complement to NATO. The Europeans are lying.
The Americans know the Europeans are lying. And the Europeans
know the Americans know they are lying. But the charade
goes on. At some point, Europe will emerge as a commercial,
financial and military challenger to the United States.

There
is also Russia. Kosovo had a traumatic effect on the Russians.
They saw how feeble they had become and the disdain in which
the United States held them. They are now rapidly building
up their armed forces. They are also busily crushing the
Chechens. Soon Russia will probably try to restore the old
Soviet Union. The East European empire has gone. But Ukraine
may well be brought back  possibly by force  into the fold.
The Baltic States, too, are vulnerable to Russian restoration.
Eventually, Russia and Europe could team up and create a
massive Eurasian power  a very real rival to the United
States.

And
there is also China. The Chinese are deeply troubled by
American power. Not for one minute do they believe that
their embassy was bombed by mistake. And that is not surprising.
The United States has yet to produce the four-year-old paper
map that allegedly guided the bombing on that fateful night.
The United States has yet to explain how it was possible
for the greatest military force in the world to use paper
maps  and not computers  to pinpoint targets. And the United
States has yet to explain why it did not know where the
Chinese embassy was located. In other words, the Chinese
are convinced that their embassy was bombed deliberately
to teach them how low they are in the pecking order. The
Chinese have also taken appropriate action. They are ready
to fight to prevent Taiwan from falling into America’s Asian
orbit. They are crushing secessionist moves in Tibet and
Xinjiang. And they are busily jailing people who they believe
are weakening the state.

For
the Cold War stalwarts among us there is something strange
about rooting for someone other than the United States.
There is something strange about rooting for the Russians
to restore their empire. There is something strange about
rooting for the Chinese over Taiwan. During the Second World
War, the United States teamed up with the Soviet Union against
Nazi Germany. As soon as the War was over, the United States
switched alliances and teamed up with non-Nazi Germany against
the Soviet Union. For many years we believed that only the
United States could save us from Communism. Now that the
Cold War is over, we need to be saved from the United States.
I know it seems odd to be looking for allies among the Russians,
the Europeans and the Chinese. But, as they say, politics
makes strange bedfellows.

George
Szamuely was born in Budapest, Hungary, educated in England,
and has worked as an editorial writer for The Times (London),
The Spectator (London), and the Times Literary Supplement
(London). In America, he has been equally busy: as an associate
at the Manhattan Institute, editor at Freedom House, film
critic for Insight, research consultant at the Hudson
Institute, and as a weekly columnist for the New York
Press. Szamuely has contributed to innumerable publications
including Commentary, American Spectator, National Review,
the Wall Street Journal, National Interest, American
Scholar, Orbis, Daily Telegraph, the Times of London,
the Sunday Telegraph, and The New Criterion.
His exclusive column for Antiwar.com appears every Wednesday.

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